イーハトーブでの編み物冒険

Category: finished objects

Here is the gorgeous snugglesuit for my future niece or nephew, in all its glory! I did an okay job of sewing in the zipper, but it’s not perfect. The fabric of the zipper pull is a little bit ruffled on the inside, which I’m hoping is going to even out with time, and washing. But I’m so happy with how this came out! It was the perfect little pattern, with the perfect little yarn. All joy in knitting this one, even when I had to reknit it twice!

When I bought the snap closures for the grey cardigan, I wanted to put my purchase over 1,000 yen so I would get a stamp in my point card (even my LYS has a point card – it’s Japan!), so I got this little Anpanman patch. Anpanman is a popular children’s character here, and is basically a superhero made from anpan, which bread stuffed with sweet red bean paste. My sister absolutely loves him, so I figured I’d sew this on to something for her baby. I had some more of this Hasegawa Ginga-3 yarn left over from both my mom’s shawl and the fox I just knitted, so I knitted up a simple garter hat. It really is relaxing to knit very simple patterns like this. I hand-sewed the patch on after blocking it, and now the baby has a (nother) little hat.

This pattern popped up on Ravelry’s Hot Right Now, and I just had to make it. I really think I like the look of knitted amigurumi over crochet (not just because I have a hard time making crochet look right). This guy was just so cute, and so quick to put together. I knitted the tail about twice as big, and fiddled with the proportions of the body; made the legs smaller. I was too sloppy in sewing up the legs, but whatevs. This will be yet another gift for my sister’s baby (I can say that now that she’s told everyone else! Haha), but she can put this up in the baby’s room for decoration if she likes.

This little baby beanie is just something I whipped up after the scrap bag, just so I could knit SOMETHING, ANYTHING. I had a little less than a ball of this yarn left over from my purple Bohus sweater, and didn’t foresee using it in anything else for myself (I like pink, purple, and yellow individually, but not in a variegated yarn…mostly because I hate variegated yarns, hah), so I randomly cast on a baby hat. I figure someone will have a baby sometime that could use it. It’s probably too small for anything but a newborn, but including the pom-pom, I managed to use up every last scrap of the yarn. Yay! (I LOVE how the pom-pom looks)

I’d love to use up most of my scrap yarn in a similar way – as baby hats and clothing – because that stuff is fun and quick to knit, even without a target sprog. But a lot of my scraps are wool/alpaca ie not washable, and I don’t want to give a new mother something that’s a pain to care for. But this hat is ALL wool. That pom-pom is not super secure either. But it’s so small that I feel confident it would only be used on a newborn, and maybe only for cutie pictures at that.

And wouldn’t you know, the day I finished this, I found out someone very close to me was pregnant …

I’m back for another round of updates! I don’t know how long this will last, as I’m about to get even more swamped with work and I think that will be the new status quo. I’m super happy about that – I had too much free time on my hands for such a long time that a knitting blog helped me fill some of it – but I did enjoy chronicling my knitting and I hope to get to do it more than occasionally. Then again, for a while last year it felt like all I was doing was knitting, and neglecting a social life because it felt better to just hermit it up at home. Like I’ve said before, I really wanted to strike a balance, and I think I have.

I have because mostly I didn’t knit for an entire month! Hah. I was busy, but I also chose a project that was not suited to me at all, and stubbornly I just wanted to finish it before moving on to something else. After I finished my other striped Vasa mentioned in the previous post, I decided I wanted to a) get rid of some scraps and b) try tapestry crochet. I REALLY like the look of colorwork in crochet, especially with southwest motifs like above. I also wanted to make a bag for taking toiletries on business trips, because my old one was getting so ratty, and practice sewing a liner and a zipper.

So on the face of it, this was a very neat project, but guys. Tapestry crochet is just so. boring. to me. It’s so fiddly carrying the yarn inside. I had to keep using smaller crochet needles since my gauge is always so loose. I had to do the major colorwork section about 4 times and only realize now what mistake I was making (It didn’t quite look right so I would crochet 2 together or increase every row randomly. Of course, that just made weird bulges in the bag). Most of all, a fiddly project just wasn’t what I was wanting to knit – I wanted to knit some stockinette or a large sweater or something, because I’m too busy to want a complicated project these days.

But anyway, it’s finished. I used 175-23 Folk Dance by DROPS design, by the way, and it’s not a bad little bag. I’m proud of the hand-sewn liner and zipper, at least. Also, even if I don’t love how it turned out, that’s probably for the best since it’s just going to get beat around in my luggage all the time. If it was something gorgeous, I wouldn’t want to use it! Hah.

I also finished the Charlestown pullover by Cheryl Cole ! This is such a beautiful sweater, and the size came out perfectly! The arms are a bit tight, but I think they’ll stretch a bit with wear, and the rest is fantastic. Close-fitting up top, and then looseish on the bottom. I can’t wear it for more than a hot second because it’s sweltering and humid right now, but I can’t WAIT til it gets cool and I can wear this alpaca-wool cream goodness.

It took longer than expected since I was busy with work, but in a way I’m glad I got to savor this sweater. It had been so long since I had so loved the look of any sweater. All the patterns I see have a samey-ness, or they’re just not my style. It’s rare to find something that hits my sweet spot of pattern love. So once I saw this, I knew I had to throw out the rest of my queue to just throw this on the needles. I’m so glad I did!

I finally finished the Sari by Kieren Foley! It took me basically over half a year to finish, and it was a TOUGH knit, since I could never manage to memorize the pattern, and each row took over 100 stitches. Lace on both sides. Colorwork, stranded AND intrasia. 4 different colors to keep track of. But it’s done, and it’s gorgeous, and it’s safely arrived with my mother for her 60th birthday!

I feel like I never want to knit something like this again, but we shall see, won’t we? I’m just happy it’s over. This knit took up so much of my knitting headspace, and I’ve been so busy with work otherwise. Now that it’s over, I hope to actually knit some more things? But then again, it’s been nice not being QUITE so productive, knitting-wise. I feel like I’ve wanted to get back into other hobbies, spend time with friends. Knitting by Youtube is so fun and relaxing, but sometimes I spend too much time doing that. For a majority of this year, I’d maybe knit for a half-hour a day, because I didn’t want to work on Sari and wouldn’t start anything else either. The knitting kind of stank, but I like the balance it added to my life! I’ll try to remember that going forward.

(knit things I’m not excited about so I’m not so obsessed with knitting. Interesting! Haha)

I finished the baby vest I knit for my friend and his wife who are expecting – the Garter Stitch Baby Kimono by Joji Locatelli. It was all stash yarn, and it’s all either linen or superwash wool/sock yarn for ease of care. The linen is a little stiff but I think this will just be worn over other clothing so it should be fine even if it’s not, like, cashmere soft (or will it? I’m pretty ignorant about babies). I love the way the stripes worked up, because it kind of reminds me of the skyline by the mountains.

The baby is actually a girl, too! I knitted this without knowing the sex of the baby, but I had a feeling it would be a girl. Well, I’m sure the baby will be drowning in pink stuff so a nice blue vest might be just what the doctor ordered. I think this would look so cute over a white dress.

I finally got around to knitting a zodiac animal for the year. I like to decorate my genkan (front entranceway) with the “Year of the whatever creature it is”, and had a crocheted monkey for the past year. Well, it’s now the Year of the Rooster, and I had some pretty alpaca grey yarn to play around with. I used the Plucky Hen pattern by Claire Garland, which was just massively fun. Knitting short rows to shape a stuffed animal is far more fun to me than crocheting the same sort of thing, even if crocheting is probably easier. I just love this little dude and his fat butt.

I found a use for the Iwaizumi Spincraft Yarn I showed off here a few months ago. It’s such an interesting black, with all the flecks of color in it, and I figured it would go well with the plaid crochet hat. I also had a few ideas for it – to knit a liner for it as well as a few extra modifications. One would be a hole for index finger on my right hand (for ease of smartphoning), and the other would be a small pocket that would fit my mp3 player. My mp3 player is close to ten years old, and often shuts off in the cold weather so I need to keep it warm at all times. This way it nestles in a pocket by my hand and I don’t have to think about it!

They are just so beautiful and versatile. I’m very happy I made them, even if one is a looser gauge than the other. The pop of red is so fetching at the edge of the ribbing. I did a provisional cast on and just knit the main pattern first, then knit the ribbing going the other way. Then I just switched to the red yarn and knit a whole new mitten basically. This way I have a soft inner liner (and use up some extra yarn in the process).

The black truly goes with everything, and the knitting process was a joy. Two layers of handknits is even more plush and wonderful. I want to use this technique again!